


And Other Splendors

by deanniker



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Medieval, Angst, Arranged Marriage, Discussions of mpreg, Drama, Eventual Happy Ending, I murder for arranged marriage aus so i decided to make one myself, M/M, Mildly Dubious Consent, Misunderstandings, On the Run, Slow Burn, no actual mpreg in the fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-24
Updated: 2020-05-25
Packaged: 2021-02-28 01:21:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 16,174
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22875454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deanniker/pseuds/deanniker
Summary: “It gets better.” Gabriel’s smile grows, somehow, wider. He pauses for effect before his next pronouncement. “A prince.”“Beg pardon?”The stretch of Gabriel’s lips is positively ghastly. “You are engaged to a prince.”***That's right folks, it's an arranged marriage AU, I can't be stopped.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 43
Kudos: 128





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I love arranged marriage aus. I love them so much.
> 
> See endnotes if you're concerned about the tags.

“Isn’t that wonderful.” Gabriel smiles, and for once it looks genuine, though Aziraphale thinks he might prefer the awkward one Gabriel likes to stretch over his teeth. 

Aziraphale answers with a smile of his own, though he could never inject that much enthusiasm into so hideous a situation. As the years had passed he began to hope he would be spared a conversation such as this. True, he is hardly old - but there are plenty of younger cousins, more beautiful and talented, whose smiles are more practiced, who would be better prepared and are even inclined. Aziraphale is best socially with books, whom he can take at his own pace and put down when necessary. And he thought that Gabriel was happy to keep Aziraphale working his books so he can _focus on other things._ Aziraphale tries not to sound petulant as he says: “What an honor.”

“It gets better.” Gabriel’s smile grows, somehow, wider. He pauses for effect before his next pronouncement. “A prince.”

“Beg pardon?”

The stretch of Gabriel’s lips is positively ghastly. “You are engaged to a prince.”

Ah. Well, at least that explains Gabriel’s unseemly delight. Aziraphale waits for the loud guffaw, the ridiculing, the _oh Aziraphale you should have seen your face_. His eyes flick over to the curtains. Sandalphon could not hide behind them, but Uriel might be waiting to jump out from them. That’s alright. He’ll even be able to laugh along with them this time, now that his frustration can be tempered with relief that he doesn’t actually have to marry anybody. 

Aziraphale waits.

He waits patiently.

“Well, aren’t you going to say something?” Gabriel asks.

Apparently it is a day where he is expected to play along. Aziraphale hides his sigh, and tries to think of some way to get this over quickly. “Which prince?”

“Anthony Crowley.”

Aziraphale’s eyebrows raise at that, surprised at the subtle touch. That prince in particular is somewhat near Aziraphale in years, of marrying age, and far enough down in the line of succession that it might be conceivable he’d be used for something as dull as a clearance of debt. There had also been rumors, something impugning about the legitimacy of his mother, if Aziraphale is keeping his royals straight.

The punchline is still apparently forthcoming. “When?”

“We ride go to the capital in three months. Not much time to slim you down, but don’t worry about that. A good tailor can work wonders.”

And there’s the mean jab Aziraphale was expecting. But there’s none of the pointing and laughing, no cousins jumping out from the wings, and Aziraphale pales as he realizes - as he realizes....

“Oh, don’t look like that, Aziraphale,” Gabriel says. “You should be honored! This is going to open so many doors for us. Uriel and Sandalphon will have places at court, we’ll finally be taken seriously.”

“Right,” Aziraphale says, through numb lips. “I - such a shock, I’m - well.” He stutters to a stop, flushing under Gabriel’s narrow gaze. It’s a look that says only too clearly that if Aziraphale messes this up, he will have much worse to contend with than the snakepit of a royal family. He forces himself into something more put together. “What am I to do to prepare?”

Gabriel’s expression softens just slightly. “Brush up on your etiquette, though you’ve always been good at that. Study their family tree.” He claps a large hand on Aziraphale’s shoulder. “You’ll do fine, Aziraphale.”

Aziraphale nods, and when Gabriel leaves, he goes to the library and pulls out a genealogy book on the royal family with hands that do not shake.

***

When Aziraphale crosses the room to be presented at the royal court, his back has never been straighter, his teeth have never been cleaner, and his clothes have never fit better. He has been thinner, he assumes, when he was still growing into his appetite, but the stress made his stomach flat enough that Gabriel even looked at it approvingly as he was fitted for his marriage clothes. 

For once, he is glad to have Gabriel’s towering presence beside him, Uriel and Sandalphon strong and steady at his back. They must all make a good impression, for the old king is seated on the throne, his son and heir apparent shining and golden beside him, watching all with narrowed eyes. The hair on the back of Aziraphale’s neck stands up as he bows as deep as he can.

Introductions are made, meaningless pleasantries exchanged as Aziraphale smiles his way around the nerves jittering just beneath his skin. He tries to act as though three months have been enough time to prepare. He tries not to look nervous when he steals glances at the young man affecting a casual sprawl against one of the pillars that line this enormous, gorgeous room.

He has the fiery red hair of his family, and though Aziraphale is too far away to be sure, he catches glimpses of the golden eyes that are even more distinctive, more exclusive.

They will be married by the end of the day.

***

The wedding ceremony is an inauspicious start. It begins to rain halfway through, and the acoustics of the chapel leave much to be desired. In no time the priest is shouting to make himself heard, and Aziraphale cannot help but feel discomfited by the sneer on Lord Crowley’s mouth. 

He had not given much thought to it before, but it occurs to him now that Crowley likely regards this match as an insult. It’s true that he’s far enough removed from the throne to have little expectation of a glamorous posting or inheritance, but even so, to be married to the younger brother of a family of barely upstarts must chafe. 

Well, it’s not like Aziraphale wanted this either, he thinks, as they walk arm in arm through the pews as a married pair. Perhaps they can find common ground in that, if nothing else.

The feast bodes a bit better. The food is excellent, and the rain is still pouring down overhead at the beginning, which makes the inaudible congratulations from various people that Aziraphale does not know easier to bear. Crowley sprawls in his chair and glares at everyone as if daring them to comment on his lack of decorum. Aziraphale himself sits ramrod straight, smiling at the courtiers trying to critique his etiquette and finding nothing. He does not care for politics, but there is satisfaction in being well prepared. 

Sometime around the third course, the rain trails off, and chatter begins to be discernible. To his left, Uriel and Sandalphon are telling a story about a group of bandits they chased away. It is a rather dull tale, told by people who are better suited to swords than stories, but it has captured the attention of many of the attendees, perhaps by virtue of being new. Aziraphale has heard it so often that it has long ago lost any luster it may have possessed, so he reaches for the wine. 

“You ever do anything like that?” Lord Crowley drawls.

He’s looking at Uriel and Sandalphon with boredom writ all over his face. What must it be like to have such freedom, Aziraphale thinks, to be able to show such disdain without fear of repercussion. Aziraphale must be more cautious. 

“I’m afraid not, my lord. I drew my sword around bandits only once and promptly gave it away.”

Lord Crowley looks at him then. “You what?”

“It seemed the thing to do,” Aziraphale says. “There I was, young and alone, surrounded by vicious bandits.”

It’s a test of sorts, to see how his new husband will react. All he has done is straighten a little in his seat, twist to face more towards Aziraphale. “So you… thought it’d be better to be young, alone, surrounded by vicious bandits - _unarmed?”_

Things are going very well indeed. There is confusion, but no disdain. Just a genuine, perplexed curiosity. 

“It was a very nice sword,” Aziraphale says. 

Lord Crowley blinks. “I’m sure.”

“Well, I thought they would be able to put it to far better use than I.”

His husband is leaning forward now, and it is certainly something to have his full attention. Those golden eyes skitter all over Aziraphale’s body, taking him in, weighing him up. He is all sharp angles and skinny limbs, but his angular face takes on a more boyish look now that he is curious. He looks pleased, to be surprised about something. For Aziraphale’s part, he is also pleased - to know that his husband is curious (such an undervalued trait) and energetic, and willing to treat Aziraphale with an open mind.

“What if they wanted to use it to run you through?”

“I didn’t really consider that a possibility at the time. You see,” he drops his voice, leans forward. But then hesitates, wonders whether this is really wise. He never told Gabriel the truth, knowing it would be better to be thought of as silly liability rather than a deliberate one. 

But there is a part of Aziraphale that wants his actions to be seen for what they are, liability or no. As Aziraphale deliberates, Lord Crowley leans forward. His hair, cut just above his shoulders and lightly curled, swings forth from behind his ear and gives them both a little curtain of privacy. He forged ahead. “They weren’t really bandits. It was right when that plague was running amok in the countryside, and I used to visit an orphanage, knew they’d be able to melt it down and get some extra money for the steel.”

Crowley starts back, eyes no longer darting about but fixed to Aziraphale’s face. 

“I’ve shocked you, Lord Crowley,” Aziraphale observes. 

He waits for the accusations that he’s soft, that he’s a fiend for lying, that he’s a coward for not facing retribution. They never come. Instead, his husband licks his lips. Curls them up in the tiniest of his smiles, and oh, it is quite lovely. “Yes, you have,” he says. He leans back in his seat. Takes a swig of his wine. “You don’t have to keep up with this lord business, you know. Just Crowley will do.”

Yes, the feast is rather a turn for the better.

***

Aziraphale was resigned to his fate, got used to the idea a few days after Gabriel informed him of this dubious honor. But, being led down the hall to the room where his marriage will be consummated, he cannot deny that he is nervous, and feels all the more ridiculous for it. Sex is sex, he’s done it before. His only hope is that Crowley doesn’t mind the feel of clammy hands. 

Thouogh if he's fair to himself, he’s never had sex in front of a future king before. He’s mindful of Lucifer’s presence, heavy in the room as he and Crowley undress in front of each other for the first time, cannot help but dart nervous glances at him, until he reminds himself that he is really being quite rude, stealing glances at another man when his husband is naked in front of him. 

Crowley is even slimmer out of his clothes, gooseflesh pimpling up and down his arms and even across his chest. He’s taller than Aziraphale is, and undeniably handsome, if in a sharp way. The red hair and the spindly limbs give an impression of danger, as though touching him might cause an injury. But his eyes are warm - soft and golden and looking at Aziraphale with at least some appreciation, and when Aziraphale lays gentle hands on Crowley’s arms, just above his knobbly elbows, he finds that his skin too, is inviting. Yes, the heir apparent need only be an afterthought when this man is in the room, and Aziraphale finds himself biting down a smile. It wouldn’t do to seem too eager, but there is surely no harm in denying that the prospect of this night is as good as one could wish for. “Right,” he says, “how would you like…”

“On your back, Crowley,” Lucifer drawls. “You know how I feel about your line.”

Crowley flinches, muscles locking up beneath Aziraphale’s hands, and Aziraphale frowns, puzzled. 

“You,” Lucifer says - to Aziraphale, and oh, this is a dangerous man. “I don’t care what color hair a child has, if it comes out of you, it has no place in my family.”

And finally, _finally,_ Aziraphale gets the answer to the first question he’d asked once his head was on straight. _Why me,_ he’d asked Gabriel, who’d given a shrug, said _the royal family insisted_ as though that was an answer. But the answer was there, in the ugly rumors about his husband’s mother, that she was illegitimate and barely tolerated by the royal family, shipped off to an estate outside the capital. Those are half forgotten, dispelled when her son came out red-faced with hair to match, but a stain like that is difficult to wash out. 

They are to be a dead end, neatly snipped off. From the moment he saw Crowley it was apparent whose hips would have to be used to deliver a child. If Crowley were to attempt it, it would likely be a death sentence. Aziraphale’s frame is well suited to the task, but he is running out of time. He likely could manage for a few years yet, but those days are numbered. In a matter of years Lucifer won’t have to threaten to keep Aziraphale from filling the family with inheritance complications. And Aziraphale’s family (and his own person) are too unimportant to voice their offense. 

Crowley is flushed red and avoiding Aziraphale’s gaze. He’s not even the nearest cousin in the mess of things, the king is still hale, and Lucifer already has a child of his own. He also, in this moment, looks so much younger, embarrassment laying bare the handful of years that separate them in age. Aziraphale squeezes his husbands arm gently, leading him to the bed. He gestures to the oil laid out and ready. “Would you like me to help you prepare?”

Crowley bites his lip and shakes his head. “Got it,” he murmurs. 

His hand is unpracticed - either he is a very good performer, or the reports of his virginity were not exaggerated, as Aziraphale’s were. What a horrid mess. 

It is a small blessing that Lucifer and the other witness (one of Crowley’s uncles, Aziraphale can’t be bothered to remember which one) keep their distance for the actual coupling. Crowley turns away from him, and Aziraphale has the dubious pleasure of taking his husband from behind while the man hides his face in his elbow. He pauses once he is fully seated, taking careful measure of the shakiness of Crowley’s breath. From the ease of his entrance he is quite sure there is no pain, and he is determined to keep it that way. 

With one more glance towards their audience, Aziraphale smooths a hand down Crowley’s side and bends down to murmur, “You’re doing quite well, you know. The first time I was in your position I came at the first thrust so hard that I nearly threw out my back.”

A sharp, indrawn breath, and then a stuttering, disbelieving laugh. “You -”

“Squealed like a sow in heat too, I’m afraid,” Aziraphale says, trying a gentle thrust. It goes over well, if the way Crowley arcs his back is any indication, so he keeps doing it. It is no hardship for Aziraphale, either. “My brother came running.”

Crowley huffs. “Must’ve - hng - been embarrassing.”

Aziraphale hums. “Not really. He’s quite fast when he puts his mind to it, so I was still feeling very good indeed when he burst into the room.”

“I was referring to your stamina, or - or lack thereof.”

“I _was_ quite a bit younger than I am now.”

“Ha,” Crowley laughs. “I suppose that’s your excuse, then?”

“My excuse?”

“Why you weren’t able to do the same to me.”

Aziraphale smiles into Crowley’s shoulder. He does so enjoy a sharp wit and a playful spirit. And a man who managed not to stumble across that bundle of nerves while he was opening himself up. Aziraphale has been avoiding it, not wanting to overwhelm him too quickly, and what a prescient thing it was too, if he can use it for this little game. “What makes you think I don’t have you exactly where I want you?”

Crowley takes a handful of moments to come up with a response, squirming a little as Aziraphale picks up the pace. It is plain he is trying to play at unaffected, but Aziraphale can see his hands flex against the sheets, can hear moans bitten off in the back of his throat. Eventually he clears his throat, but only manages a: “Well you… you haven’t...”

“I much prefer making someone come at my say-so, not as an accident.”

“You couldn’t,” Crowley goads him.

“My dear boy.” Aziraphale grins, wrapping a hand around Crowley and stroking in time as he picks up speed. “I rather think I _can.”_ With that, he changes the angle when he snaps his hips forward, right into that bundle of nerves, and Crowley gasps and tenses and comes with a loud, indecent cry all over Aziraphale’s hand. Aziraphale keeps the memory of that sound, replays it once Crowley is relaxed once again, and follows him a handful of thrusts later. 

“Enjoyed that, didn’t he,” Crowley’s uncle quips as Aziraphale is pulling out. Aziraphale curls his hand around Crowley’s hip, concerned, but Crowley doesn’t tense up this time, only sighs a little and settles into the bed. 

Lucifer says something that sounds vaguely chiding, and then they are mercifully alone. 

He pulls on his pants and pulls some covers over Crowley, who seems to have no intention of peeling himself from the bed. Aziraphale fishes into his pockets and pulls out the packet of herbs he had prepared. He’d imagined they’d be for him, and that he’d perhaps decide not to use them. What a lovely thing it is, to be prepared. He crushes them into water and brings the cup to the bed. 

“Do sit up and drink this.”

Crowley sits up and gulps it down. Aziraphale takes the opportunity to pull a chair up close to the bed. 

He prefers straightforwardness as a general rule, and hopes Crowley might be the type to appreciate it. “It seems we are in quite a pickle, then.”

“You could say that,” Crowley rasps. 

“I have no intention of getting a child upon you, nor incurring the wrath of your cousin by bearing one myself,” Aziraphale tells him. 

“What about your family?”

Aziraphale waves his hand. “Oh, I’m sure Gabriel will have all manner of things to say on the matter, but - well, he can bluster all he likes, can’t he? Now that I’m married to you that’s all it is. He can’t force me to sleep with you, so I shan’t.”

“Right. Good.”

Crowley has withdrawn a bit, staring into his empty cup. Against the dark of the sheets, his skin is a pale snow, his hair a harsh splash of color, thin frame swallowed up by the bed. Again, he looks alone, lonely - an unintended side effect, perhaps, of having so striking an appearance. Perhaps Aziraphale laid things out a little too plainly. Perhaps he shouldn’t have struck up this conversation so soon. 

“Well,” he says. “We’ll - I’m sure we’ll have lots to talk about, but that can wait. Do you mind if I…”

Crowley shifts over a bit, gives him even more space on the sumptuous bed. “Not at all,” he says softly, as Aziraphale slides beneath the covers. “Aziraphale? May I call you…”

“Oh,” Aziraphale laughs a little at himself, sinking into the sheets. “Terribly rude of me. Yes, of course. Good night, Crowley.”

Crowley’s voice is a soft rasp in the room. “Goodnight.”


	2. Chapter 2

The countryside ambles slowly by, every rut in the road on the way to Aziraphale’s new home causing a series of vicious jolts that rattles them in their seats. Crowley, stubborn bundle of bones that he is, bears it by seething through his teeth and endlessly readjusting his sprawl. Aziraphale is also uncomfortable but he at least is sitting up straight, his back spared the worst of the brunt of the rough road. Sensing it to be a lost cause, Aziraphale does not tell Crowley to try on a better posture.

“So, Crowley,” Aziraphale says, when cataloguing the endless trees becomes too much. “What kind of a house do you keep?”

“Dunno,” Crowley says. “Never had one.”

“But we’re going to your mother’s palace, aren’t we?”

“Never - never been.”

“Ah. I see. What kind of house would you like to keep, then?”

“Hmm?” Crowley turns his gaze to Aziraphale, folding in on himself.

“What would you have, in your house?”

Crowley frowns. “Not much point in discussing it, is there? Sure to be a mouldering heap, and every pitiful cent will have to be spent on making sure we don’t drop dead of the chill.”

“4,000 a year is hardly a pittance,” Aziraphale says, though it might be for royalty, and is less than what he had on hand keeping Gabriel’s books. “There’s sure to be some left over.”

Crowley huffs and turns back to the window. Undeterred and reluctant to turn back to the trees, Aziraphale forges on. “Very well, I’ll go first, shall I? I would like to build a library. A lovely, enormous library, with floor to ceiling shelves -”

“Hope it’s a small room, then,” Crowley mumbles.

“How dreadful, the idea of a small library. No, mine shall be vast. Three stories high at least, and just as wide.”

“ _ Three _ stories?”

“At least,” Aziraphale reminds him. “Don’t short-change me. Yes, and there will be a reading nook in every corner.”

“You couldn’t read that many books in one life-time. No one could.”

“You underestimate me, I’m afraid. I am a hideous bookworm.”

Crowley shakes his head, though his mouth has an amused tilt now. “ _ Three  _ stories. The one at court is only two.”

Aziraphale sighs. “Oh, how I wish I had had time to see it. And the one at the University! I’ve heard that one is the real jewel.”

Crowley squirms in his seat. “Might be.” He ducks his head. “I attended the University. For a time.”

“You did?” Aziraphale asks, startled. “You don’t look like a scholar.” It’s true - though he does not look like much of a soldier either, or a pampered, lazy, member of the nobility, as Aziraphale does. He doesn’t fit into any neat categories, this inelegant mess of a man.

Crowley shrugs. “Liked to be there, I suppose. Sat in on a few lectures, here and there. Nothing interesting.”

“What kind of lectures?”

Crowley grimaces. Aziraphale fights to keep a pleasant smile upon his face as he reflects that he might only get more of a reaction from this man if he were shaking him by the shoulders. Eventually, Crowley says: “Plants, astronomy. Some engineering.”

“Engineering!” Aziraphale says, smile turning to one of genuine delight. “You mean - how to build bridges, and things? How marvelous.”

“Not that,” Crowley scoffs. “No fun in that. I liked - clocks and compasses. Little things.”

“How lovely. Would you like an observatory then? A workshop? Oh, a greenhouse?”

“A greenhouse?” At this, Crowley actually sits up straight. “With the price of glass? You’re mad.”

“The point of this little exercise is not to consider what’s possible, it's to while the long hours away while we jolt about in this infernal contraption,” Aziraphale snaps, his well of patience finally run dry.

Crowley huffs and slouches further in his seat. How he hasn’t ended up on the floor is a wonder. Aziraphale rolls his eyes, turns to stare out the barely changing landscape. His breath fogs up on the small plane of glass, denying him even that dull distraction. 

“What kind of books?”

Aziraphale looks down at his companion. There’s no denying it now, Crowley’s chin is level with his knees. “What was that?”

“What kind of books do you like, Aziraphale,” Crowley grits out, sounding aggrieved. 

“Don’t pretend you’re interested.”

“I am.”

“You are not.”

“I am!”

Aziraphale scoffs. “Oh, please. I’m not going to perform for you like some dressed up monkey, Crowley. If you don’t want to speak to me, we don’t have to speak.”

Inch by inch, Crowley’s form straightens until it’s something resembling a seated human. “I don’t want you to perform for me.”

Aziraphale rolls his eyes. “Clearly.”

“Tell me about your books. I’ll listen. I will.”

For a moment Aziraphale considers refusing - but the remaining hours stretch out long in front of them, the trees along the road growing ever sparser as they make their way due north, and he might as well chatter instead of seething in silence. 

***

When Aziraphale looked deeper into his husband's family history he learned that the palace, nestled in the foothills close to one of the minor passes. The former glory of it is reflected in the thick columns that line the main facade of the house. But the grounds are overrun, dotted here and there with thickets of brambles. When they enter Aziraphale catches the smell of damp, rotted wood, and there’s a general mustiness in the quality of the air. It speaks of a large house that hasn’t been lived in, that hasn’t been left to fall down but certainly has been left. 

Aziraphale and Crowley explore it’s lengths together. The servants sent before them have beaten out rugs and washed the windows, but there’s no denying the vacant feel, the lack of cheer. 

“North wing was most recently renovated,” Crowley says, pulling the door closed on a particularly dismal room. 

The North wing  _ is _ nicer, the layout more modern and better constructed. 

“I think we had better just make use of this wing,” Aziraphale says, eyeing Crowley as he considers his peculiar word choice.  _ Was most recently renovated,  _ instead of  _ where my mother lived, -  _ but Crowley doesn’t say anything, and the rest of their day is spent parcelling out the space, informing the servants what to place and where. Crowley takes the larger bedroom and Aziraphale’s - filled with bags waiting to be unpacked - feels a bit crowded, but once things are put away he’s sure it will feel cozy. 

There is a library, in the East wing, with a few lonely books on the shelves that  _ are  _ mouldering. He runs his hands over their dusty covers to reveal the warping underneath and sighs - what a waste. 

“Sorry,” Crowley says, slouched against one of the empty shelves, having trailed after Aziraphale through this giant maze of a house. “Know it’s not - it isn’t.”

“Isn’t what?”

Crowley sneers around the word. “Nice.”

“Well, it really is a terrible place to put a library,” Aziraphale observes. “Far too damp. How on earth any books could expect to survive in this climate is a mystery. No, that little room off the back of the parlor should do quite nicely.”

“It will?”

“It should. Unless you were planning on using it for yourself?”

Crowley shakes his head. “It’s all yours.”

***

Crowley leaves the next day, to make a tour of the countryside, the local villages. He mumbles something about getting to know the lay of the land, and scarpers off. Aziraphale takes the invitation to organize their living space, and before Crowley returns, organizes his bedroom into something quite cozy indeed, has set up a nice little parlor, and relocated the least rotten bookshelves into his little room in the back, where he sets up a reading table. The few books Aziraphale bought for himself over the years sit on the newly dusted shelves, and it’s a lovely place to sit and sort through their house finances. 

“No three stories,” Crowley observes. 

“Ah,” Aziraphale looks up, cricks his neck. “You’re back. How were the villages?”

Crowley shrugs. “Villages.”

“Verbose as ever, I see.”

Crowley looks up, startled. Aziraphale waves it off. “Never mind. I’ve had a look through our finances, and I think we’re really fairly well off. I don’t plan to entertain much, and once you remove that from the equation, there’s really not much to worry about. Here, I’ve drawn up a budget.” He hands the sheet over. “I’ve kept some aside for renovations to this wing of the house, and you’ll see we have a fair bit left over, for whatever we like.”

“For books?” Crowley asks, voice dry.

“If you must know, yes, that was my plan for my portion of it,” Aziraphale says. “Though of course - if you want to renovate the rest of the house we can do that, it will take some time to save -”

“Nah,” Crowley says. “Keep it drafty and gloomy, ‘s’better that way. Looks good - I have just one question.”

“Yes?”

“This food budget,” Crowley stabs his finger at the line - it’s no small sum. “Does it include alcohol?”

Aziraphale smiles. “It  _ does _ .”

***

Crowley, tight lipped as he is during the day, is extremely talkative when he’s drunk: loud, opinionated, and rude as anything. Aziraphale should find this repulsive but instead finds Crowley’s tendency to get up and lope and gesticulate and curse around the room endlessly entertaining. 

“What is your point?” Aziraphale prompts.

“My point,” Crowley stops, belches, starts again. Aziraphale bites down on a smile. “My point is, I don’t care what your bloody book says - dolphins swim. In the sea. They’re a fish.”

“They breathe, I’m afraid. Haven’t you heard of their - of their little blow thingies?”

“Blow thingies?” Crowley near shouts, incredulous.

Admittedly, that was not one of Aziraphale’s more masterful rebuttals. “The point is, they breathe. Air. Ergo, they are not a fish.”

“Well what’s a fish then?” Crowley throws his hands up, collapses into his armchair. “What’s a bloody fish, if it’s not something that swims in the sea.”

“Hmm,” Aziraphale says, too drunk to come up with a response to that philosophical problem. To cover for it, he observes: “You know, I like you like this.”

“Drunk? Drunker than a fish? Or your blasted dolphin?”

Aziraphale giggles. “Rude, uncouth. Loud, alive.”

“I look dead to you normally?”

“Ha!” Aziraphale laughs. “Not a chance, with eyes like that.”

Crowley startles, those eyes turning round, and the next thing to come out of his mouth is quiet. “I like you too, you know. Even - even not like this. When you’re - you know…”

“Sober?” Aziraphale hazards. 

Crowley grins. “That’s the one.”

“That’s lovely to hear,” Aziraphale says. “Now, about frogs….”

***

They travel back to the capital at the turn of the seasons, for the king’s birthday. It is apparently a yearly pilgrimage that must be undertaken by the whole royal family. After the late summer rains, the road is even bumpier than it was on the way to their palace, and Aziraphale is far less enthused about the prospect of having to conduct himself in front of court. His manners are impeccable, of course - but he enjoys knowing that no one at his home will judge him for forgoing the dessert fork in favor of one larger. 

The prospect of returning to the capital has also made Crowley more withdrawn, though it is apparent that his reticence to engage in conversation is due to the situation as opposed to Aziraphale’s presence.

“You must be looking forward to seeing your family again,” Aziraphale prods.

Crowley snorts. 

“Friends, then.”

“Don’t be stupid, Aziraphale,” Crowley says. 

“Not a one?”

“No.”

Aziraphale scoffs. He and his family are hardly on the best of terms, but there is something to be said for the sight of a familiar face. “Surely, you must have some allies, at least.”

“What’s it to you,” Crowley snaps. “Why on earth should I -”

“I am your husband,” Aziraphale reminds him. “I shall have to sit next to you at dinner, and I should like to know who to avoid smiling at.”

“You’ll smile at everyone regardless,” Crowley says, with a bit of a smile in his voice.

“Perhaps you underestimate me,” Aziraphale says. “I can manage - well, sort of a polite, detached nod.”

Crowley laughs outright, and Aziraphale smiles. 

“Who should I save my smile for, then?”

“Only me,” Crowley says, grinning a shark smile at him from across the carriage. “I’m the only decent one in the whole bunch.”

“Really, Crowley.”

Crowley’s smile falters, and he looks away. He sniffs. “Lucifer’s not so bad.”

“ _ Lucifer.”  _

Crowley nods. 

Aziraphale frowns. He hasn’t forgotten the shocked and humiliated look on Crowley’s face, on the night of their wedding. A talk about heirs is not out of place, Aziraphale was subjected to one that he has been very happy to ignore - but Gabriel had the decency to do it behind closed doors and in advance. It would have been the simplest thing to make clear to Crowley what was expected from him in advance, not unveil it at a vulnerable moment. 

“The man who wants to exterminate your line,” Aziraphale says flatly. 

Crowley grimaces and the silence between them, for the first time in a very long time, is awkward. They have not spoken of that night, and Aziraphale did not intend to speak of it ever again. 

“Look,” Crowley says, picking at his pants. “Lucifer, he doesn’t want - that. But it’s not personal. He likes me well enough.”

“Crowley,” Aziraphale says, leaning forward and taking one of Crowley’s thin hands in his own. It’s quite bony, but pleasant to hold regardless. “He was quite cruel with you.”

“Nah,” Crowley says, but the flippancy in his voice is not that of a man who is convinced of it, and Aziraphale is reminded that while they may be - well, not friends, perhaps, but amiable in their companionship, he has no right to demand that Crowley lay out his inner turmoil. 

Aziraphale squeezes his hand once before letting go. “I’m sorry for pushing.”

Crowley manages to give him a smile. “You can smile at him, if you like. He arranged this marriage, made sure that I wasn’t set up to be a threat to anyone. Your family isn’t in a position to scheme -”

“I assure you, my brother is scheming at this very moment.”

“Maybe,” Crowley says. “But not with me. I’m away from it all now - you’ve no idea what it’s like at court, everyone’s always trying to clamber over everyone else to get to the top. But now we’re off to the side, we don’t have to worry about that anymore.”

Be that as it may, Aziraphale sniffs and sits back in his seat. “I will not smile at him.”

Crowley grins, looking more like himself. “Bet you you will.”

***

Their time in court passes as pleasantly as it can. Uriel and Sandalphon are there to make pleasant conversation in public and mild threats in private. Aziraphale spends most of his time avoiding them in the library, which shouldn’t work as it’s not exactly a mystery that he loves to spend his time around books, but they don’t follow him there. Perhaps they are afraid to get lost in the stacks. 

It is a surprise, then, when two weeks into their stay someone slides into the chair opposite and makes themselves a nuisance with repeated clearings of the throat while Aziraphale is engrossed. He looks up, and is bewildered to find Crowley’s uncle there. 

“Aziraphale,” he says. “Enjoying country life?”

Admittedly, Aziraphale cannot remember everyone he spoke to during his first stay at court as it was an overwhelming experience, so it is possible he had a perfectly polite conversation with this man. But what Aziraphale does remember is Hastur being the other man to witness their consummation, and the pithy comment he made when all was over. “Very much,” Aziraphale says, clipped.

“You know,” Hastur continues, not remarking on Aziraphale’s tone, if he noticed. “It’s a shame they shipped you out to the middle of nowhere. I hear you’d be quite the asset here.”

“Really,” Aziraphale says.

“You were running the finances for your family, weren’t you. I’m sure you would do well here, if you were only given the opportunity.”

“Really,” Azirapahle says again.

“I could put in a good word for you with the king,” Hastur says. He hasn’t smiled at all, which Aziraphale thinks might be a blessing. This might be a trap, but at least it isn’t a false one.

“I appreciate the offer,” Aziraphale says, not bothering to ask what the catch is. “But I am quite content with the life I currently share with my husband.”

“Crowley doesn’t have any ambition,” Hastur warns. 

Aziraphale hums, buying time to think of what exactly to say to make this man go away. He is saved by a movement behind him.

“Making new friends, are we Hastur?” Crowley drawls.

“Maybe.”

_ Not, _ Aziraphale thinks, watching him walk away.

“What was that about?” Crowley asks, staring off in the direction that Hastur disappeared.

“I think Gabriel may have overshot himself a bit when he was spreading word of my attributes. Your uncle seems to think I am a good candidate for either bribery or espionage.”

“You can’t tell which one?”

“Never got that far,” Aziraphale tells him. “Did you need me for something?”

Crowley shakes his head. “Just came to see if you were enjoying your two stories.”

“Immensely,” Aziraphale says. 

“Right. Leave you to it then.”

“I don’t mind if you stay,” Aziraphale tells him. “But I’m unlikely to be any kind of conversation partner here.”

Crowley slinks off into the stacks without a word, but over the next few days stops by at Aziraphale’s table with manuscripts containing increasingly ludicrous illuminations, a much more welcome diversion than scheming uncles.

In the end Aziraphale does smile at Lucifer, though only once, when he is drawn into a longer conversation with the man about the budget for their household. He can only politely nod for so long. Crowley smirks at him from behind Lucifer’s back when he does it, and Aziraphale does not roll his eyes. 

The three weeks they stay are not unpleasant, but Aziraphale, though he bemoans the loss of the splendid library, is happy to leave at the end of it. They are both more guarded - though Crowley is less so, because he has no sense of decorum - and it is a relief to be bundled into their carriage, where Crowley slouches down at an angle that looks inhuman, and Aziraphale can finally exhale and let his shoulders settle. 

“Once every year?” Aziraphale asks. 

“‘Fraid so.”

“Well,” Aziraphale says. “The library is quite lovely.”

***

Fall begins to turn into winter, and Aziraphale spends most of his time ensconced away in his library, where things are a bit less drafty. Crowley, for his part, skulks around outside. Aziraphale will catch glimpses of him outlining the boundaries of a garden, overturning stones and peering beneath them, poking at things with sticks. When it gets too cold, he holes himself up in his room and takes apart little clocks he brought with him, puts them back together. Sometimes, Aziraphale joins him and vice versa, but for the most part they only see each other when they take their meals, and in the evenings when they decide to indulge in some wine.

“‘Lo, Aziraphale,” Crowley says, leaning his hip against the entrance to Aziraphale’s library. “I - well, I -”

And in his hands, is a book. A beautiful, leatherbound book. “Solon’s Taxonomy?” Aziraphale breaths as he takes it from him. “Crowley…”

“Not a big deal,” Crowley sniffs. “Thought I’d use it to prove you wrong about the dolphins, but Solon’s as big of an idiot as you are.”

“Crowley, you didn’t have to.”

“Not a big deal, angel.”

“Angel?” Aziraphale asks, as he opens the book, takes in the beautiful illustrations. Such marvelous work, this can’t have been cheap.

“Don’t look at me, you’re the one who has it as a sigil.”

“That is Michael, the founder of our house, discovering silver by the light of the moon.”

“Suuuure,” Crowley drawls. “A moon right behind his head. Convenient, that.”

It’s true, though Gabriel will never admit it, being a pompous ass and loving to be able to correct people’s interpretation to something more pretentious (silver by the light of the moon, really). Aziraphale doesn’t like to admit it either, despite how transparent it is. “This is lovely, Crowley. Thank you.”

“Thought you would like it.”

When Aziraphale looks up, Crowley is smiling at him. None of his usual smiles - not strained, not manic, not sloppy with alcohol. Just gentle. He ducks his head. Looks back up.

“Aziraphale…” He says, at the same time that Aziraphale says, “Crowley.”

“Sorry,” Aziraphale says. 

“No, after you.”

Aziraphale places his hand on the cover of the book. “Crowley, thank you. If it’s not too forward - I…” 

“Yes, angel?” Crowley prompts.

“I should like us to be friends.” Aziraphale stares, hopeful, up at Crowley’s face. It’s something he’s thought for awhile now, that they could share something beyond this house, Crowley’s title, but it’s always been too difficult to put words behind it, to stand the thought of Crowley’s rejection. He takes delight in being a caustic man, and Aziraphale is not sure if so soft a concept would be welcome.

Sure enough, Crowley’s smile slips, just a little. “Friends?”

“Yes, I - I enjoy your company, very much. Of course, if you wouldn’t like to, we can continue as we are, married partners, that’s quite alright with me. But -”

Crowley turns his head away, shakes it a little. “Friends,” he says, trying the word on for size. It sounds awkward in his mouth. “Friends.”

He turns back, smiles. “Yes, I - I’d like to be friends with you, Aziraphale.”


	3. Chapter 3

It should be a lovely day. It is only a few weeks into autumn, early enough that the chill mornings still bear a welcome crispness after the heat of summer as opposed to a warning of what is to come. Outside their windows, the foothills are carpeted in orange and red and gold. They’ve always caught the beginnings and ends of the beauty as bookends of their trips to the capital, but never in the six years of their marriage have they been lucky enough to witness the full majesty of the turn of the seasons. 

Lucifer has not sent word when they should expect to make a yearly trip to pay him their homage, but Aziraphale hopes it is not during this precious handful of weeks, when the magnificence is so undeniable that even Crowley slows down to take it in.

Yes, it should be a lovely day. They have no looming threat of the Capital over their heads, Aziraphale will not have to spend three weeks dodging Hastur’s decreasingly subtle entreaties. It should be a lovely day, but Crowley seems intent on making himself a pest. 

The door opens as Aziraphale’s rook is removed by thin, deft fingers, and Aziraphale is happy to snatch up the letter (from Gabriel, unfortunately) as a distraction from Crowley’s smug smirk. They are closely matched when it comes to chess - Aziraphale ponders the board slowly and carefully, and Crowley has no sense of strategy whatsoever. He plays with absolute recklessness, throwing out moves that no sane man would contemplate, and it’s endlessly frustrating when Aziraphale can’t beat him.

“Don’t think I don’t know you’re stalling, Aziraphale,” Crowley drawls. 

Aziraphale glowers at him as he tears open the envelope. “Go back to your scheming, you fiend.” Said without any real heat. He frowns at the papers in his hands - there’s another envelope inside the first, and a hastily scribbled note from Gabriel, entreating him to pass it onto his husband.

How odd. As far as he knows Gabriel and Crowley have never even spoken, aside from a few practiced phrases at their wedding all those years ago. But he is happy enough to let someone else deal with his brother, so he shrugs and hands it to Crowley, who raises his eyebrows and takes it. Aziraphale returns to perusing the board. Crowley’s left his entire left side open, but surely, surely it must be a trap. There must be something that Aziraphale is missing. He ponders his choices, and decides it safest to just move one of his pawns. He does so, and looks back up at his companion.

Crowley is still reading the letter, wide-eyed and stock still. It is, quite frankly, a disturbing sight. “Good Lord, what is it?” Aziraphale asks. 

Crowley shoves himself away from the table so hard that his chair overturns and he falls to the floor. He staggers to his feet before the servants get to him. “Out,” he snarls. “Out, all of you.” When they hesitate, he plucks pieces off the board and begins to pelt them with both words and ivory. They scatter.

Aziraphale stares, alarmed, as Crowley’s chest heaves as the doors slam shut. Crowley is prone to moods, but he shouts at the world in general and hardly ever at people.”Crowley?”

Crowley throws the paper at him as if it burns and paces away toward the windows. Not the ones facing the gorgeous painted mountains, but the ones to the south, where there is nothing to be seen but bare fields and open road.

Aziraphale begins to read. “A fire…” he begins. “How dreadful, oh…” When he gets to the list of names, he raises a shaky hand to cover his lips. He never liked Lucifer, and to be frank did not care much for his children either, but… they were so young…

Crowley’s whole body is trembling, there at the windows. Aziraphale crosses to him to offer what condolences he can, though heaven only knows what words could possibly make this better. So many names, so much of Crowley’s family swept away…

He reads the list again - and then it strikes him. Surely not - surely - but it’s there, laid out in the spaces between black and white. “Crowley,” he says. His husband is still shaking, mouth a thin line and eyes very far away. “Crowley, you… you’re the  _ king. _ ”

Crowley snaps into action then, fisting his hands in Aziraphale’s shirt and backing him into the wall. “Shut up,” he hisses under his breath. “Don’t ever, ever, say that again.”

“But,” Aziraphale begins. “You  _ are,  _ it’s quite plain -”

“I am not, I am  _ not.  _ If I were, we wouldn’t have heard about this from your bloody brother.”

“What -”

“Hastur,” Crowley snarls. He lets Aziraphale go, stares out the window again. Looking for riders, Aziraphale realizes. “He’ll be here soon, to kill me. We have to leave, we have to disappear.” 

“Oh,” Aziraphale manages, shakily. He can still feel the phantom press of Crowley’s hands on his chest, the way they’d trembled, the  _ fear.  _ A fear that is rapidly infecting him, as Aziraphale considers just how alone they are, how much danger has been revealed in a letter that hardly said anything. “Oh dear,” he manages.

“Within the hour,” Crowley says. “Don’t say anything, don’t waste any time. Meet me at the stables.”

“Crowley -” Aziraphale lays a hand on Crowley’s arm. “You’re a much better rider, you know I’ll only slow you down, please, go on without me, I’ll be -”

Crowley covers Aziraphale’s hand with his own. “You won’t be safe from him, Aziraphale,” Crowley says, looking down at him earnestly. “You’re on the game board now, like it or not.”

Aziraphale’s gaze darts over to their unfinished game, and he shivers a little, staring at what remains of his conservative set up - the king safe behind a wall of pawns, the queen out in the open, unprotected and exposed. Crowley follows his gaze, sighs. “Not the  _ queen,  _ angel _.” _

Aziraphale laughs a little at his silliness. Of course not. Queens are important - more than that they’re powerful. Without them things fall apart. Aziraphale has always been content in his role as a pawn, but now staring at the way he has lined them up, a disposable shield in front of what really matters - he shudders. 

Crowley squeezes his hand. “Within the hour.”

***

Aziraphale has never had his hands in Crowley’s hair before. It is a shame that the first time is with a blade in his hand. Crowley takes pride in his appearance, and he’s never had his hair hacked off in the dark by hands inexperienced with a blade, never had it uneven and jagged. Never had to sit on the wet forest floor while Aziraphale perches on a fallen tree trunk and tries not to pull at his scalp too hard. It is an experience made more painful with how long it is at the moment, tumbling down past his shoulders, a gorgeous red river gone to waste.

“We should dye it,” Aziraphale says, taking another lock and slicing it off with regret. It is softer than he imagined. 

Crowley hums. “Mud should do for now.”

Aziraphale takes a deep breath, hating the image that conjures up. He continues cutting. “Do you have a plan?”

Crowley picks at his pants and doesn’t speak.

“Never mind,” Aziraphale says quickly. “There you are.” He runs his hands through Crowley’s hair. After a few passes through, it evens out into something marginally less terrible.

“I have nowhere to go,” Crowley says. It sounds like it’s wrenched out of him. “No one to turn to.” They didn’t light a fire for fear of being seen, and his words are loud in the relative quiet.

“You have me.” 

Crowley tilts his head into Aziraphale’s knee, and Aziraphale’s heart stutters with the desire to lean down and wrap his arms around him. They don’t embrace, they don’t touch much at all, and Aziraphale is furious that he didn’t try in their comfortable house, so that he would be able to reach down and offer comfort now when he needs it most.

“I think we should try to get to the Centauris,” Crowley says, startling Aziraphale from his thoughts.

“Across the sea?”

“Hastur won’t follow us there.”

“Quite a trip.”

Crowley sighs. “I know. But what else -”

The Centauris are notorious for being dangerous places, outside the rigid order that comes with the kingdom, but for men like them - they could work their way up, use their talent. Crowley is cunning. Aziraphale may not have quite the same flair, but he has a head for numbers and letters, excelled at keeping Gabriel’s books. They could build something for themselves.

“To Golden Bay, then?”

Crowley shakes his head. “Too close to the capitol. South Bay would be better, the seas will be calmer anyway.” 

“I suppose. How much do you think it will cost?”

“I brought enough for us.”

“Alright.” 

They sit in silence for a long while. The afternoon and evening were so hectic as Aziraphale struggled to keep himself from bouncing out of his saddle that he has hardly had time to think on what has happened. He knows he can’t fully grasp it yet, he’s still shocked that Hastur would kill all his family (for there is no mistaking that long list of names for an accident) to steal the crown for a handful of years. And all those times he tried to get Aziraphale in on his schemes - he never said,  _ maybe you should kill your husband for me -  _ is that where it was heading? Is that what he wanted Aziraphale to say yes to?

“How are your legs?” Crowley asks, startling Aziraphale away from his spiralling thoughts. 

“Oh,” Aziraphale says. “They’re fine.”

“Angel.”

Crowley loves to ride, does it every day. He would drag Aziraphale along on occasion, but they never went very far or fast, and the chafing on his legs is a muted reminder of how ill-suited Aziraphale is to life on the road. “I’ll manage,” Aziraphale says.

***

Crowley knows his own lands, knows the lay of it, the little paths that meander through it. They spend the first few weeks sleeping in the relative safety of hollows and dens. Aziraphale supposes he shouldn’t be surprised, but Crowley’s stories about his time in the villages were always about mischief, not about sleeping in the cold. 

Then comes the moment where Crowley reins up his horse. They’re at the top of a knoll, a vast, grassy plain laid out beneath it. A single road cuts through it. 

“I think you’re safer with me,” Crowley says. “But if…”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” Aziraphale steers his horse closer to Crowley, reaches out and pulls Crowley’s hood up. His hair is much darker now, dulled down by the sweat and the dust that comes from being on the road for days, but that bright red still shines through in sunlight. “I’ll not hear of it.” He steers his horse down onto the road.

They come across a small village and decide to stop in it as a test. They will not be able to avoid public places forever, but after so much time alone Aziraphale has to force himself not to wring his hands. Crowley has a dagger stashed on him somewhere, but Aziraphale didn’t think to bring any weapons. A sword would be too conspicuous, but Aziraphale finds himself wishing for one just the same as they duck into a tavern. 

After weeks of berries and root vegetables, meat pies are a luxury. Aziraphale digs into his with more desperation than relish, and Crowley, for once, doesn’t pick at his own and wolfs it down in kind.

“When I get my hands on that Crawly bastard...” A drunkard shouts, and Crowley and Aziraphale freeze in unison.

“Yeah, what are you going to do?” Someone shouts back at him.

“I’ma fuckin’ wring his neck, tha’s what.”

“Come off it.”

“After what he did, killing those kids - s’wot the bastard deserves.”

“Finish your pie,” Aziraphale hisses. 

They do. The drunkard keeps shouting as they nurse their ale, though he changes his tune to complaining about the wateriness of his beer. They ride out of town, hunker down by the edge of the river. Aziraphale bites out clipped instructions to Crowley to wash his hair and heads back into town, to the apothecary, and buys herbs to stain Crowley’s hair a muddy brown before heading back into the tavern for a drink and the gossip. 

Crowley starts to his feet when Aziraphale stumbles into their camp in the early hours of the morning, a dagger in his hand. Aziraphale waves off his stuttered apology, and Aziraphale puts his hands in Crowley’s hair for a second time - this time to run a thick paste through it, wetting down the strands and sticking them together. Making sure there is no glimpse of blood red to be found. He tells Crowley about the things he heard. “Not everyone believes the rumours, of course, but there’s a thousand crown reward for you.”

“Alive?”

Aziraphale lets silence speak for him. 

“You weren’t tempted?” It wants to be a joke, but there’s something fragile and cracked beneath it, something that speaks of hours spent alone, on edge, with nothing but thoughts for company. It’s the kind of company that will make anyone’s first response to sudden sound to draw a weapon.

If Crowley’s head was not thick with dye Aziraphale would bend down and press his lips to his crown, offer him comfort in the gentlest way he can. If his hands weren’t stained he’d squeeze Crowley’s shoulder. “Hush, you,” he says instead. “If you had anything to fear from me it would have been when you told me we were out of sugar and there’d be no desserts until the next shipment came in.”

Crowley laughs at that, his completely improper, hacking,  _ real _ laugh. His shoulders curl in and he shakes. Aziraphale smiles with relief that - after everything - Crowley can still laugh like that, like they’re not cold, and tired, and terrified. 

“Oh, you should have seen your face.”

It’s the same thing Crowley said three years ago, what Aziraphale spent much of his childhood hearing. But Crowley’s little prank had ended with him pulling the sheet off a tray full of Aziraphale’s favorites, grinning like a lunatic while Aziraphale swatted at him and tried to tell him off around a mouthful of sugar.  _ You think I don’t know to keep extra on stock for you, angel?  _ Crowley had said.  _ You think I don’t know what kind of reserves you require? _

In the present, Aziraphale flicks Crowley’s ear. “You menace. Wash that out.”

It occurs to him, as they lay down to rest for the little of the night they have left, that Aziraphale may never taste sugar again. May never have another lemon cookie melt in his mouth. This is certainly the longest he has ever done without. Even when Gabriel was keeping a strict eye on his figure in the leadup to the wedding Aziraphale would steal into the kitchens, sample whatever sweets were available. He wonders what it means that he hasn’t thought of that before. Exhaustion is the likely answer. With that, he wills himself to stop thinking and falls asleep.

In the morning, Crowley runs a hand through his hair, shakes it out. “How do I look?”

Aziraphale considers. The mud-brown hair is an improvement, to be sure, will help people’s eyes slide away from his face, but if they look twice his eyes will still give him away - and they will look twice, surely they will. Crowley is too striking to fade into the background. “Better.”

“Thought you liked my hair?” Crowley asks, mouth pulling down into a melodramatic pout. 

“There’s nothing wrong with your hearing, Crowley,” Aziraphale says, throwing a pebble at him.

He tells himself they’re going to be fine.

***

They don’t take a direct route to South Bay. They wend and wind, backtracking nearly as often as they head forward, so that if anyone is looking for two men going south, north, east, or west - well, they’re always two men heading in no particular direction.

As time passes, the rewards for Crowley’s head - and Aziraphale’s too, once he starts cropping up - grow, until it’s almost laughable. 

“Why not just offer a lordship at this rate,” Crowley hisses at one point, staring at the rendering of his face - too thin, laughably angular, nose without any indication of hook. 

It’s a fair question: the figure is staggering - far more than Aziraphale and he were alloted in a year. “Come along,” Aziraphale urges. They can’t simply ignore the posters, that would be immensely suspicious, but it always raises Aziraphale’s hackles, looking from Crowley’s picture to his face, picking out the similarities - that anyone could, if they tried..

How he wishes Crowley could grow a beard - but it’s hard enough keeping his hair dyed. Aziraphale’s face bears little resemblance to the poor rendering, and he supposes their reticence to appear in court is paying off. With his thinning body he doesn’t have to dye his hair - though the figure for his head is also growing immense. Perhaps he should consider it, or letting his beard grow out. But - it is hard enough looking at Crowley and finding something unfamiliar there. Aziraphale does not want to look at his own reflection and see something he has never been.

“You’re too thin,” Crowley tells him, a strange catch in his voice, as he continues to glare at the posters. 

“Really,” Aziraphale chides. “Now is not the time _. _ ”

Finally,  _ finally, _ Crowley turns away. 

Crowley’s reward may have grown, but the rumblings about him are decidedly more positive. The new king has raised the taxes, and of course it hasn’t gone over well. 

“Crowley would never have done it.”

“One king is as bad as the next, you daft twit. You’d rather the one that murders children?”

“How do you know he’s the one what done it? Seems like Hastur’s the king now. He’s the one sitting pretty.”

Crowley’s hand twists around his tankard. Usually, he waits outside of town while Aziraphale buys supplies, listens to the gossip. But every so often the frost feels too thick, the open fields too exposed, and they rent a room in a tavern, eat hot food and keep their mouths closed.

“We can’t know, so stop your yammering,” someone else cries out, to Aziraphale’s relief.

“Would you want it?” Aziraphale asks in the relative safety of their rented room, sitting on the bed and watching Crowley wash his face in the little bowl of water. 

“No.”

“That was quick.” 

Crowley shrugs. He takes off his shirt and Aziraphale looks away, unhappy with the ribs he can count, the grime stained into Crowley’s skin.

“Public opinion -”

“Won’t be worth a shit against 20,000 crowns.”

“I didn’t ask if you thought it was possible,” Aziraphale snaps. “I asked if it was what you want.”

“Why?” Crowley asks, turning around. It’s an old source of contention between them. Aziraphale prods to know more of Crowley’s ambitions, desires, and Crowley remains ever unwilling to indulge in anything remotely close to a flight of fancy. “What’s the point?”

“We’re running,” Aziraphale says. “Is it so bad to want a destination?”

Crowley goes back to wiping his skin with the rag. “I want safety. That’s all.”

“That’s all?” Aziraphale asks. His eyes feel hot. It troubles him, often, how little Crowley thinks of himself. He was only too happy to spend money on Aziraphale’s sugar, his books, his trivial nonsense, and so reticent to spend on himself. Crowley would wax for hours about a rare orchid or the newest device from the minds of the capital’s inventors, and if Aziraphale didn’t order it, it wouldn’t be done.

Crowley pauses. Straightens. A strange expression pulls at his mouth. “Maybe not all.”

“What then?”

Crowley shakes his head. “No point saying it.” He turns around and goes back to washing.

***

There’s no way to get to South Bay without going through a city. The surrounding countryside is too treacherous to travel and so they have to choose between the three chokepoints into the valley, three cities that present their own dangers. Crowley pulls out his maps, grits his teeth and shakes his head and finally decides that Middlemarch is the one to chance. It is neither the largest or the smallest, and Aziraphale thinks Crowley picked it just to avoid commiting to an extreme.

“Ready?” Crowley asks.

Aziraphale nods. 

They don’t speak much, once they get into the city. The streets are narrow - they have to pause, stare into the faces of the people moving in the opposite direction as the great crushes of people cause inevitable blockages, as a cart breaks down some miles off and causes the entire street to come to a standstill. 

There are soldiers here too - royal soldiers, bearing the crest of Crowley’s family. There’s little possibility this far south that any of them would have seen him before, but every time Aziraphale sees them his heart pounds in his chest. He stays close to Crowley, tries to keep his head high, unflinching. Tries to keep himself between Crowley and the people who would kill him. He is only too aware that in this city there is only one angle he can protect. 

“Make way,” someone shouts up ahead. “Make way for Archduke Deacon.”

Aziraphale blanches at the familiar name. When he looks at Crowley, his husband is sheet white. “I know him,” he confirms in a whisper. “One of Hastur’s - friends.” Aziraphale’s heart plummets. 

“The alleyway,” he says, taking the reins of Crowley’s horse. “Go.”

Crowley winces. It’s not subtle, darting for cover, and Aziraphale hates to send him any distance away - but it would draw more attention to urge the horses in after him. He watches Crowley duck into darkness, and turns his attention back to the oncoming danger.

The archduke’s palanquin makes slow progress through the crowded city streets. Aziraphale can only make out a vague shape of the man through the curtains, and he tries to emulate the curiosity of the people surrounding him. 

Eventually, the noble party lumbers its way past, and Aziraphale breathes in relief and turns to see Crowley making his way back out of the alleyway. 

There’s shouting, coming back from where they came. Aziraphale glances back, sees a woman hanging out of the window, gesturing to the palanquin below, shouting something about taxes. She ducks back inside for a moment, throws a chamberpot into the street. The contents of the bucket arc through the air, scattering in a disgusting mess, but the bucket itself lands directly on the Archduke’s transport. 

“Oh, Lord,” Aziraphale breathes, in the silent moment before all hell breaks loose. One of the soldiers fires an arrow, and the woman screams and tumbles out into the street. And the people, the hungry, tired people that have been making their way slowly through this overcrowded city, start to riot.

Aziraphale is buffeted this way and that, as people scramble to either get closer to the pandemonium or farther away. He plants his feet and slings his arm around his horses neck, grits his teeth and holds his ground while Crowley struggles his way towards him. 

“Please,” Aziraphale finds himself saying. “Please.” Crowley is making progress, but the crowd is getting wilder, more riotous. People are screaming, people are falling. If Aziraphale weren’t holding onto a horse he’d be on the cobblestones already. He wants to reach out, but all he can do is watch as Crowley struggles to keep his balance in the chaos surrounding him. 

And then - a sudden surge, a press away, and another person falls, and tries to claw his way back to his feet with Crowley’s cloak. Crowley keeps his feet, but his cloak rips off and spins away. Aziraphale wastes a dumbfounded moment watching the cloak slip to the street and get trampled underfoot. He wrenches his head up just in time to see Crowley’s gorgeous, golden eyes catching the light as he stares back at Aziraphale in shock. He reaches out, and disappears in a press of people moving the other way. 

“No,” Aziraphale shouts. “No - Crow -”

His hands shake as he pulls himself into the saddle, spinning around, trying to find him in a sea of people. But there’s too many, and Aziraphale’s eyes are blurry with tears. He can’t even call out for him without giving him away. “Please,” he shouts at the world. “Please.”

“Angel!”

Aziraphale whirls, and there he is, hair starting to lose it’s brown color, red beginning to shine through. Aziraphale sobs in relief and tries to wheel the horse around to reach him, but everyone is too tightly thronged together, so he slips off and stumbles his way through in that direction instead.

Crowley catches him. “Angel -”

“Put,” Aziraphale manages. He shrugs out of his cloak and slings it around Crowley’s head. “You - you  _ idiot,  _ keep - keep that on.”

Crowley tightens his grip around it, haphazardly slung over his hair like a shawl. “Angel, it’s fine, no one is looking at us.”

“Close your eyes,” Aziraphale stammers. “Close your  _ eyes.” _

“Angel,” Crowley says again, eyes still wide. Anyone could see, anyone could know, anyone could reach out and slip a knife between Crowley’s thin ribs, turn that golden light grey, spill his blood and compare the color to the roots of his hair. There’d be a riot over his corpse that would make the one down the street look like a cheap show.

Aziraphale claps his hands to the sides of Crowley’s face. Tries to shake some sense into him. “Close your eyes, you  _ monster.”  _

Crowley exhales shakily and finally does. His eyes slide shut, and Aziraphale could count all the freckles on his eyelids. He can’t though, because his heart is still pounding, his eyes are still hot with tears. “You monster,” Aziraphale says again. “You  _ monster _ . I almost - you were gone.”

“Can’t lose me,” Crowley says, eyes still closed. “Stick out like anything.”

Aziraphale blubbers out a laugh. “You foul demon _ ,”  _ he says. “You nightmare.” 

Because he can’t say,  _ Oh God, I love you, It would kill me to lose you. I love you. I love you. _

“You’ll kill me,” Aziraphale murmurs, because it’s close to the truth. “No -” When Crowley starts to blink his eyes open. “Not here. Hold tight to me.”

Crowley inhales sharply and closes his eyes, tightens his grip when Aziraphale slides their hands together and leads them to the nearest alleyway. “Alright?” he asks, when they step into the cooler shadows, where the air smells fouler but is nonetheless easier to breathe.

“Just, just a moment,” Aziraphale says, desperate to have a quiet moment with his thoughts, away from the press of people, the immediate danger. He frames Crowley’s face with trembling hands, breath hitching when Crowley’s eyes skitter beneath his closed lids, when he swallows so hard Aziraphale can feel it in the movements of his jaw. 

He’s picked a rotten time to realize he’s in love, for Aziraphale knows the emotion was not caused by a riot in an unfamiliar city. This has been there for some time. This is why he barely blinked at saddle sores and an empty stomach, why he followed Crowley out of their house, why he’s slept on the dirt for months. He has hardly bothered to think about the loss of his books, his creature comforts, because - because he loves Crowley more than any of them. Because their allure is swallowed up, nothing, in comparison to this man. 

He wants to straighten up and press kisses to Crowley’s lips, to Crowley’s spine, all the tender parts of his body, but he doesn’t. Aziraphale won’t cheapen this by telling Crowley how much he means to him in this miserable, frightful place. That’s a conversation that he will have when they are not bound together by circumstance. When they’re in a place where they can make a choice with it, when it makes a difference what emotion stutters in Aziraphale’s heart, only then will Aziraphale put a name to it. 

For now, he steps away. “What rotten luck you have, my dear,” Aziraphale says, to keep other things from spilling out. He reaches up, readjusts Crowley’s cloak so that he’s wearing it in a proper fashion, avoids watching the slow way Crowley’s eyes slide open.

“Don’t suppose you kept an eye on the horses.”

“I almost lost  _ you _ ,” Aziraphale says. “I don’t give a damn about the horses.”

“Angel,” Crowley breathes, eyes wide and startled. He is so beautiful. “All - all the money was in the saddlebags.”

“All of it?” Aziraphale asks. 

“I have some in my clothes,” Crowley says. “But yes.”

“I’m sorry,” Aziraphale says, because he is. But he does not regret. He is with the man that he loves.

***

They leave the city the same way they came in. There’s not much point continuing on without money for the voyage, and they have more options on this side of the gates. 

“Crowley,” Aziraphale says. “I think we should go to my brother.”

Crowley looks up at that, his skin lit golden by the light of the fire. Aziraphale forces himself not to look away. “Your brother?”

“Yes,” Aziraphale says. “We need help. And money. Gabriel has that in spades.”

“The money, maybe,” Crowley snorts. “Not so sure about the help.”

“He did warn us,” Aziraphale points out. “And our lands aren’t far from here. Winter is far from over, and we aren’t ready for it. We won’t last.”

Crowley grimaces. “I don’t trust him.”

Aziraphale cannot blame him for that, but - it is true that they can’t go on like this. He has been eyeing Crowley’s thin frame with worry this whole time, but there’s an undercurrent of desperation now that wasn’t there before. He can’t let anything happen to this man. He can’t let Crowley waste away. He can’t feel relief that the two of them can pass unnoticed in seas of starving men.

“Do you trust me?” Aziraphale asks. 

Crowley holds his gaze for a long moment, and looks away. “Don’t be stupid.”

“Then trust me in this,” Aziraphale says. “I know Gabriel. We don’t always see eye to eye, but he always wants what’s best for his family, for me. He won’t turn us in.”

“Alright,” Crowley says. “Alright.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back! Chapter five needed a MAJOR rewrite, so that's why there was a delay. And I'm just generally slow.
> 
> BTW - if you've been following from the beginning, please note that I updated the warnings. Nothing terrible is going to happen to these sweet boys, but the next couple chapters took a very different direction than what I originally envisioned, and I felt it would be misleading to leave at No Archive Warnings Apply.

Aziraphale had forgotten how imposing his childhood home was. Unlike their palatial estate it’s a true castle, set aside a bend in the river. Aziraphale had forgotten how large the towers loomed, how thick the stones were that made up the outer wall. There is no color in winter, the walls of the castle made from a uniform slate grey that does little to stand out from the thin layer of snow covering the ground. It can look bright and beautiful, Aziraphale remembers. The tops of the spires are burnished with silver and glitter in the sunlight, and against a blue sky the white flags are stark and magnificent. But against thick grey clouds the impression is bleak and cold. 

Crowley doesn’t like it, Aziraphale can tell. His mouth tightens into a grimmer line with each step. But he follows Aziraphale when they slip through the open gates. Things have not changed much, there is still the same emptiness in the courtyards and corridors, a general absence of people. Gabriel has always preferred a small, trusted staff over a plethora of servants, and it is a simple thing to find his way to his brother’s rooms without being seen.

Gabriel isn’t inside, so Aziraphale settles in one of Gabriel’s chairs to wait. Crowley doesn’t sit. He paces. “Are you sure about this?” he asks, for the thousandth time.

“Trust me,” Aziraphale says. 

Crowley nods. “You - you know I do, angel. I just -”

“My dear,” Aziraphale crosses the room and takes Crowley’s hands in his. He tries not to use those words too often, since they always make Crowley start and skitter away, discomfort written into the tense line of his shoulders. It’s painful to see but Aziraphale can’t always help himself, begins to say things like _my darling_ and _my love_ and has no choice but to continue and change it to something less ardent. “There is nothing to fear.”

Crowley bites his lip. Nods again, though he doesn’t look convinced. Aziraphale squeezes his hands.

The heavy door groans, and they both jump. Crowley tries to pull away, but Aziraphale keeps a tight grip on one of his hands and steps in front of his husband just as Gabriel pulls up short at the sight of them. 

“Aziraphale?”

“Gabriel.”

“What are you…” Gabriel turns and slams the bar of the door down, locking them in. Crowley’s hand flinches. Aziraphale runs his thumb over Crowley’s knuckles and tugs him closer.

“What are you doing here?” Gabriel hisses when he turns back around. 

“We need your help.” Aziraphale says. Gabriel looks past him, eyes sharpening when he focuses on Crowley. This time Crowley is successful in wrenching his hand away. Aziraphales tries to tamp down on the hurt that causes.

“If Hastur found out about this -”

“Please, Gabriel. We only need money, we just need to get out of the country. We’re not asking for anything more than your help in that.”

Gabriel pinches his nose, runs a hand down his face until it covers his mouth. 

“Please, brother,” Aziraphale says. 

“Fine,” Gabriel says. “Alright, fine.”

Gabriel leads them down the hall until they reach one of the guest rooms. He motions for Crowley to go inside. “I’ll send a servant to you, a mute. Do _not_ let anyone else see you.”

Crowley hesitates. Aziraphale nods as encouragingly as he can, relief coursing through him when Crowley ducks inside. 

Gabriel continues until they reach Aziraphale’s old rooms. “The same goes for you, don’t show your face to _anyone,”_ he warns. “Come to my rooms for dinner, we’ll discuss what to do.” He reaches out and clasps Aziraphale on the shoulder. “I’m - pleased,” he says. 

That emotional display apparently being too much for him, Gabriel stalks off without another word. Aziraphale slips into his old room with a relieved sigh.

***

His room looks familiar, but Aziraphale passes the time until dinner restlessly. A servant came, poured a bath, and the warm water felt lovely, the soap smelled heavenly, and yet Aziraphale feels uneasy. The room used to be his. Unlike the ones in Gabriel’s rooms, the cushions on the chairs are plush. Aziraphale picked out the curtains and much of the furniture, remembers being pleased with his choices. But looking at them now, it is obvious his decisions were alway influenced by what Gabriel expected. He picked out light maple for the wood, a pale blue for the curtains. It’s a lovely room, but with none of the rich tones Aziraphale filled his library with. No red cedar, no thick rugs spun together in the deepest of hues. 

It is only a few hours later that he slips out of his rooms and pads down the hallway to Gabriel’s, glad to stop dwelling on the growing sense of unease he feels. They’ve been travelling so long, so terrified of being caught, that coming to a standstill, surrounded by walls, is less comforting that Aziraphale thought it would be. 

“Ah, Aziraphale, right on time,” Gabriel says, from where he is perusing a vast selection of fine wines. Aziraphale’s mouth waters, from the promise of wine and the fine spread on the table. He manages a genuine smile, but it stutters when he sees there are only two places laid out. 

“Isn’t Crowley joining us?” Aziraphale asks. 

Gabriel turns around and gives him an odd look. “Had his brought to his rooms, can’t risk someone seeing him.”

“Of course,” Aziraphale says, but, as he sits at the table it occurs to him that the entire spread could have been brought to the room Crowley is staying in. Perhaps by that mute that Gabriel mentioned, and that they must hope hasn’t been secretly learning to read and write. For that matter, why separate them at all? Aziraphale wouldn’t have written that they slept in different rooms.

Gabriel could have simply assumed, Aziraphale reminds himself. He does that, he always has. It is, after all, both less flattering and more reasonable to assume he and Crowley were never in a rapturous state of wedded bliss. And Gabriel has always been calm under pressure, so there is no cause to be concerned by the pleased way Gabriel settles into his seat, by the steady stream of wine poured from his hand. “No need to be restrained, Aziraphale,” Gabriel remarks. “You’ve more than earned it.”

Aziraphale manages a weak smile, reaches for the wine and takes too large a sip. After so long without, it burns his nose. “So,” he begins carefully. “You have a plan for us?”

“Mm,” Gabriel says. “Quite a good one too. You took longer than I expected getting here, but that might have been a good thing. The rewards are an unfortunate hitch, no doubt, but public opinion just keeps growing in our favor. Hastur can’t stop digging himself into a deeper hole, it’s a wonder he managed to get away with murder.”

Aziraphale watches his hands load food onto his plate, listens to himself make humming noises at the appropriate moments, when Gabriel pauses for a reaction to his vision of the future, Crowley a puppet on the throne with Gabriel right behind him, reaping the reward. Aziraphale does not allow his hands to shake.

“Number one priority is to get a child in him, and fast.”

“You cannot be serious,” Aziraphale says around a numb tongue. 

Gabriel gives him that look again, the one that says Aziraphale shouldn’t be so far behind. “The people won’t rally behind a childless monarch, they want to know they’re investing in the future.”

“But they’ll rally around a dead one?”

Gabriel scoffs. “I know he’s slim, but come on, Aziraphale. There’s a, a method of cutting that’s all the rage across the sea, the baby always comes out fine.”

“The baby?” Aziraphale asks, unable to keep the anger from his voice. He shouldn’t, he _mustn't_ show his hand. But -

“You know I’ll do everything I can for Crowley too, but really, the baby is what matters. And this wouldn’t be an issue if you’d just done your duty and bore a child while you still could.”

It is inevitable. Aziraphale’s hands shake, and he spills his wine. 

“If you don’t have the stomach for it, I’ll put you on the next boat to the free cities and marry him myself. Would make things simpler. But he seems - fond of you, from what you told me in your letters, and that might make him easier to manage. You wouldn’t have been able to get him here otherwise.”

Aziraphale closes his eyes against the waves of nausea threatening to overwhelm him. He is the most dastardly creature to ever walk this earth. He should walk off the parapets and plummet to his doom, having led Crowley to this.

He will not. He will get Gabriel to spill his secrets and then he will find a way out of this. “We have to wait,” he croaks.

Gabriel sighs. “What?”

Aziraphale clears his throat. “We have to wait,” he says, firmly this time. “Have you seen him? He’s skin and bones.”

“And whose fault is that?” Gabriel asks. “If you’d got him here sooner -”

“Crowley is a cautious man.” Aziraphale says. Cautious, and still a fool for following Aziraphale into the lion’s den. “If I had pushed sooner he would have split away from me, and if you want a child, we need to wait.”

Gabriel considers. “A month - a month should be fine. I need to spread the word anyway, and that will take time. All right.”

***

“I’ll be just outside,” Gabriel says. It’s meant to be an assurance, Aziraphale thinks - but what are Aziraphale’s judgements worth, really? He thought they’d be safe in coming here, was stupid enough to believe that only Crowley’s family would betray them in a quest for power. Aziraphale doesn’t know anything, can’t be sure of anything. Gabriel claps him on the shoulder again. “You did well to bring him here, Aziraphale. I’m impressed.” 

Aziraphale turns from Gabriel’s smile (smug? conspiratorial? threatening?) and pushes open the door.

He is not sure what he expected. Crowley, lounging against the wall, unaffected? Crowley, eyes wet with tears, on his knees?

What he gets is Crowley, hair washed, clothes neat, one ankle secured with ball and chain, standing in the center of the room, one hip cocked out and arms crossed in front of his chest. 

It’s a stance Aziraphale recognizes, from when they visited court. It’s meant to look casual, indifferent, Crowley’s usual posture with a hint of arrogance. If he used it on Gabriel it might work but Aziraphale can tell when it’s an affectation, and Crowley is just a little too stiff, shoulders a little too curled, mouth a little too thin.

Even worse, Gabriel’s gone and dressed him in their family’s colors, a ham-fisted claim staked out in white and silver. In another context it might be amusing to see Crowley in something so different from his customary black, but now it’s sickening. Aziraphale has to look away. 

He knows these rooms. He crosses to one of the tapestries, presses his hands against it. There used to be a window here, but behind the cloth is hard stone. He lets out a broken laugh. Gabriel must have done it the moment he heard the news. Outfitting this prison fit for a king, and Aziraphale was stupid enough to walk them into it. 

When he turns around, Crowley hasn’t moved. “Has Gabriel spoken with you yet?”

Crowley shakes his head.

As though Gabriel hasn’t been cruel enough, now he’s made Aziraphale be the one to put his mistake into words. Aziraphale takes a steadying breath. “By now you must have surmised that he means to crown you. He says that most of the minor nobility is on your side, and some of the greater houses as well - Hastur has not made himself many friends.”

Crowley continues to stand very still. 

“The first order of business is to get you with child, though that will wait until you’ve had time to regain some strength. Once that is taken care of, the campaign will begin.” Crowley still does not react. Perhaps he considered the possibility. Perhaps he is in shock. 

Aware that Gabriel is almost certainly listening, Aziraphale cannot say _I’ll get us out of this before it comes to that, I’ll find a way._ Instead, praying that Crowley will understand, he says: “Crowley, everything is going according to plan.”

Crowley sucks in a breath, holds it before it comes back out in a shaky jumble of confused consonants. He takes a step back and flinches as the chain rattles across the floor. For a long moment he contemplates the black iron encasing his foot. When he finally looks up, his eyes are white around the edges. “You - you wanted this?” Crowley chokes.

Aziraphale feels his entire being freeze. He didn’t consider that - that Crowley would think he did this, that Aziraphale brought him here on purpose - 

“That’s why -” Crowley’s face twists up into something grotesque that Aziraphale has never seen before, and can’t parse. “You - that’s why you -”

The doors screech as Gabriel lets himself into the room.

Crowley shrinks away from Gabriel’s advance, whimpering when he’s caught up by the chain on his ankle. It’s awful, so much like a caged, frightened animal, so unlike the proud, pragmatic man Aziraphale grew to love. Aziraphale can’t seem to make himself move. He feels very far from himself as he catalogues Crowley’s heaving chest, his darting eyes. Absurdly, Aziraphale’s attention is caught by the bare skin of Crowley’s ankle. It will chafe, if he continues to strain against it. 

Aziraphale caused this. “Crowley,” he begins, and has no idea how to continue.

“Aziraphale, _why.”_

“Aziraphale knows who his family is,” Gabriel says. 

“I do,” Aziraphale says, looking desperately at his husband. But Crowley is already curling in on himself. 

“Angel,” Crowley entreats. 

That’s enough to snap Aziraphale out of his paralysis. He takes the handful of steps needed to cup Crowley’s cheek, Gabriel’s attention a mere afterthought. “Yes,” he breathes. _Understand,_ he begs Crowley silently. _That is your name for me, yours alone. I choose you as my family, I just need time to get us out of this._

Crowley doesn’t hear him. Tears begin to fall as soon as Aziraphale’s palm touches his skin. It is the first time he has ever seen his husband cry, Aziraphale realizes. That’s the new, terrible expression on his face that Aziraphale caused. Apparently, Crowley cries silently, biting his lip, anguish written in the lines of his mouth, in his shaking shoulders. Aziraphale tries to take away the pain by stroking away some of the evidence with his thumb, but it does nothing but make Crowley close his eyes, breath still hitching, tears still streaming.

“My, you do have him wrapped around your little finger, don’t you Aziraphale? Well done.”

Bile rises in Aziraphale’s throat, but he swallows it down, wills it and his shame back into his belly. There will be time for abhorrence for his own person later. What he needs now is to make the barest, slightest steps toward getting Crowley out of here. “Is the shackle really necessary?” Aziraphale asks. 

Gabriel hums. “He did try to escape, earlier.”

“He knows he won’t get far, alone. Don’t you, Crowley?”

Crowley nods into Aziraphale’s palm. The shackle falls off his ankle with a dull rattle. Gabriel shuffles it back under the bed, and Aziraphale keeps himself from wincing at every jangle. When he and Gabriel leave the room, Crowley makes no attempt to follow.

***

It is a shame to have to put Crowley’s lessons to use in this context, but Aziraphale is glad to know how to pick a lock, to get into Gabriel’s enormous stores of wealth. He will not even notice that the sack of silver Aziraphale pilfers is missing, but once he has it Aziraphale knows he has to move quickly. Gabriel is busy, writing letters to his allies, and only getting busier with each passing day. Soon the month’s reprieve he bought them will be up, and they will be locked into this dismal future.

He takes the clock in his room and pulls it apart, uses another of Crowley’s lessons to put it back together stopped at the time Aziraphale will come for him, and sends it to Crowley with Gabriel’s permission.

“A clock?”

“To help him pass the time.”

“Pass the time with a broken clock,” Gabriel laughs. “That’s very good, Aziraphale.”

“Let him put it back together,” Aziraphale sighs, using it to hide how nervous he is. “To keep him occupied.”

Gabriel hefts the small clock in his large hands. Peers down at it. If Aziraphale thought he could get away with it, he’d have written an actual message, but this will have to do.

Gabriel shrugs and hands it off to a servant, and Aziraphale goes back to his room and spends the next few hours pacing in nervous anticipation. When the time comes, he leaves the letter he wrote to Gabriel on his desk. He is not happy with it, and probably shouldn’t have tried to spell out his thoughts in the first place, shouldn’t be offering Gabriel whatever ammunition he will be able to glean from it. But he also doesn’t want to slip away into the night unremarked. He doesn’t want Gabriel to speculate that there might be some third party behind their escape, doesn’t want Gabriel to think of him as nothing but a loyal brother. Aziraphale chose this path, and he wants Gabriel to know it.

Even so, he was unable to put into words what Gabriel has done to him, the betrayal he felt when he realized that he and Gabriel had never been united in common purpose, that the only reason they never had a major disagreement is because Aziraphale never had the tenacity to step out of line, never asked for something that Gabriel wouldn’t deign to give.

And his words about Crowley… He wants Gabriel to know that if they were to be recaptured, Aziraphale would fight tooth and nail to give Crowley the opportunity to escape. That there is nothing Gabriel could tempt him with that would make Aziraphale reconsider. That Aziraphale would consider it an honor to live and die in poverty beside this man. That despite everything, he cannot bring himself to hate his brother - because even after all the betrayal and hurt, without his scheming and machinations, Aziraphale would never have met Crowley, had the privilege to have been married to him.

All this and more Aziraphale has fallen short at putting into words. He hopes what he managed is enough.

Gabriel has never thought much of him, but never thought of him with suspicion either. He does not leave guards outside of Crowley’s room, assured as he is of everyone’s loyalty. He just keeps it barred from the outside. It is a simple matter to wait until it is late enough that no one will come to check on him for the rest of the night.

He rushes into the room, and stops at the sight of Crowley, splayed out in one of the chairs, wineglass held loose in his fingers. “You’re not ready?” Aziraphale hisses. 

“Ready?” Crowley slurs. “Ready for wha’? Issn’t been a month yet?” Good lord, he’s as drunk as Aziraphale’s ever seen him. 

“You didn’t get my message?”

“Message?” Crowley knocks back more wine.

Aziraphale’s eyes roam over the room. The clock, when he finds it, is smashed in pieces on the floor. 

“We’re leaving tonight,” Aziraphale says, walking over to him and trying to lever him out of the chair. His hands are slapped away. “Crowley.”

“Don’t,” Crowley snaps, voice dark. “Don’t touch me.”

“My dear -” Aziraphale begins. 

Crowley lurches to his feet. “No, you - don’t call me that.”

Crowley may be swaying on his feet, breath stinking of wine, but he is very, very serious. “I won’t,” Aziraphale promises. “I won’t touch you. But we need to leave.”

When they fled from their home all those months ago, it was a quiet affair, but that will not do this time. No, Aziraphale must make sure they are not followed, for Gabriel will try to ensnare them again. Crowley struggles to mount his horse but manages by the time Aziraphale finishes opening the rest of the stall doors. As they leave, Aziraphale strikes a match, and prays that it burns everything to the ground. Crowley watches him do it, drunk-eyed and listed slightly in his saddle, and they ride away.

They ride hard through the night to a little crossing, and board a ferry in the early hours. It’s slow moving but should help to hide their scent, and will take them in the opposite direction they’d be most likely to go. By the time they disembark, the heavy rain clouds that have been threatening for the past few days begin to spill over. It’s a stroke of luck that they desperately needed, but being drenched carries its own danger so when Azirapahle spots a structure in the distance he guides them towards it.

It used to be a cottage, but most of it has fallen in, the boards rotten, a dreary blight upon the landscape. But there’s a small patch of roof still left, and Crowley collapses into the dry space under it. The remaining sheltered area is tinier still, and Aziraphale knows that if he were to sit in it they’d need to huddle together - and is painfully aware that Crowley hasn’t looked directly at him since they fled. 

Crowley’s hair is slicked down by the rain, plastered in lines across his forehead. Aziraphale longs to push it back, take Crowley’s cold hands to warm them, and has never wanted anything more than to find the words that will let Crowley forgive him enough to do so. “Crowley,” Aziraphale begins, voice as gentle as he can make it. “I’m so sorry. I had no idea that Gabriel -”

“Oh, really?” Crowley sneers. “Take your word on that, should I?”

“It wasn’t all bad, was it?” Aziraphale twists his hands into knots. “After all, we have money again now, enough for both of us, and - and horses. And we were able to eat some decent food for a time.” Oh, he sounds so stupid, but he’s desperate to find enough of a silver lining that Crowley will forgive him.

“Yeah, sure,” Crowley bites out, and Aziraphale’s heart sinks. He stares down at his hands, tries to come to terms with the idea that there will be no apologies accepted. He could get down on his knees, beg for forgiveness, spill out all of his secrets in the hopes that they will be understood as an explanation. But Aziraphale knows that isn’t fair. His motives are no excuse for putting them in such danger, and he doesn’t want to make Crowley have to tell him that. 

“Crowley.”

“What?”

It takes a while for Aziraphale to answer. He knows what he must do, has been steeling himself in anticipation, but it’s hard, when Crowley looks so miserable, so beautiful. Aziraphale knows every line of Crowley’s face and he is still overwhelmed by how he looks, wet and cold from the rain. 

Aziraphale takes a shaky breath and distills it down to its simplest parts: “We need to separate.”

Crowley looks up at him, finally, though there isn’t a hint of expression on his face. He does not say anything. 

“Gabriel will be looking for us now, and he knows me, he knows where I’ll go, what I’ll think to do.”

“So, that’s it. You’ve had enough of me?”

 _Never,_ Aziraphale could say, or _Of course not, I love you._

“We’ll be safer apart,” Aziraphale says.

Crowley’s hands clench up into fists, and a muscle tics in his jaw. “Fine,” he says. “Give me the silver.”

The bag of coin is heavy as he hands it over. Their fingers do not brush in the transfer, and Aziraphale finds himself grieving to be denied even that. They may never see each other again, and because of Aziraphale’s blundering naivete he cannot even touch the man he loves as they say their goodbyes. Aziraphale would be content with a handshake. But the last time they touched Crowley had slapped his hands away, and Aziraphale must find a way to live with that. 

He straightens and prepares to leave this transient shelter, but can’t resist looking back at Crowley one last time. Perhaps Crowley will ask him not to leave. Perhaps Crowley will muster up a smile, tell him that there are no hard feelings between them. Perhaps Aziraphale will look back at him and know that he has made the right decision. 

Crowley holds his gaze for only moment, and looks away. Aziraphale walks out into the rain.

**Author's Note:**

> More to come! I have a fair amount written and am posting in the hope that it gets me to finish, instead of just re-editing chapters I already have done.
> 
> Mildy Dubious Consent refers to the consummation of a political marriage. Mostly just awkward in this case.
> 
> [Say hi on tumbr](https://deanniker-wastingtime.tumblr.com/)


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